1901 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE, 



913 



beset great masses of the hard-working- 

 people. May God be praised that it is my 

 privilege, even in advancing ^years, to be 

 one of them, outdoors, under his clear skies, 

 and in his woods, claiming; the promise he 

 has g-iven, to direct )i!y paiJis. 



POTATOES IN LEELANAW CO., MICHIGAN; 

 TESTING DIFFERENT VARIETIES. 



Some time in May I sent friend Hilbert a 

 barrel of assorted potatoes, of our best vii- 

 rieties, to be tested on his farm. Along in 

 July I found we had about a barrel of Red 

 Triumphs that we had no room for. They 

 had been spread out in the light on the 

 barn floor for nearly two months, and were 

 a wilted, dried-up, sorry-looking- lot. I 

 shipped these also to him, telling him he 

 mig-ht get from them enough for seed next 

 j'ear. They were so poor his bo^'s threw 

 out a larg-e part of them as " no good " i\t 

 all; but when Mr. Hilbert saw them, re- 

 membering what I had said, and perhtips 

 also from some of his own experience, he 

 had the " poor trash " planted also. They 

 were put on new ground, and had very lit- 

 tle care, or cultivation of any sort; in fact, 

 they were put in so kite no one thought they 

 would amount to much. Let me say here, 

 that, during the past season in Medina, we 

 have had so much trouble with blig-ht on 

 the Triumphs I had about decided not to 

 plant any more here. About four years ag-o 

 they gave good yields with but very little 

 blight; but since then it has been worse and 

 worse every year. In Medina they don't 

 stand hot dry weather at all. Well, here 

 at Mr. Hilbert's there was very little or no 

 blight at all, and the poor dried-up wilted 

 seed gave the handsomest smooth, round, red 

 potatoes I ever saw ; in fact, they looked 

 more like be^iutiful fruit than like potatoes. 

 They are exactly like the Bermuda Tri- 

 umphs; and, in fact, this soil is about as 

 soft and yielding as that in Bermuda. No 

 wonder the potatoes eire of such nice shape, 

 for there are no lumps of dirt or any thing- 

 else to hinder them from taking shape just 

 as the apples and cherries do right out in the 

 air. The yield was very fair, considering. 

 Now, I have a small test-plot of potatoes 

 in my ravine garden, and a dozen hills of 

 Triumphs there gave a beautiful yield — no 

 blight, and some of the potatoes are as big 

 as a goose ei^g- Of course, we can not, so 

 far north, g-row potatoes for the early city 

 markets; but we can grow Triumphs and 

 other extra-early potatoes for seed for all 

 the rest of the world. Some one may sug- 

 gest that, after potatoes have been g-rown 

 so many years on the same ground, we shall 

 have blight here, perhaps, as badly as we 

 now have it in Medina, O., and other places. 



Early Ohio does hardlj' as well here as 

 in Medina, and it seems of late to be rather 

 strongly disposed to blight everywhere, but 

 not nearly as badly as is the Triumph. 



Bovee has been a fair success here, both 

 on Mr. Hilbert's test-ground and in the ra- 

 vine garden. In fact, it j'ields equal to some 

 of the best late potatoes, and is almost as 

 early as the Early Ohio. As with the 

 Freeman, there are a good many small ones, 

 but the shiipe is not as g-ood as the Freeman. 

 The latter has given a fine yield on this 

 soil — in fact, about as well as it used to do 

 for Terry. It is not only ahead of every 

 thing else in quality, but it is the smoothest 

 and best-shaped of all the potatoes. The 

 eyes on good specimens gTown in this soil 

 are almost exactly on a level. 



Maule's Commercial gives a very good 

 yield. The potatoes are all large (almost 

 none so small as to be called seconds), and 

 the shape is very much better than in Me- 

 dina. Carman No. 3 is beautiful in shape, 

 all good table size, and the yield is the 

 largest of any of the five kinds I sent for 

 trial. I was not disappointed in this, for I 

 expected it to show quite a little improve- 

 ment over the Rural that is so commoh 

 through this region. It is so much like the 

 Rural it will doubtless be sold as such. 

 The Carman (and I think the Rural also) 

 has the very valuable trait of giving a very 

 even stand. There are almost no missing 

 hills where the planting is carefully done. 



The New Craig was the greatest disap- 

 pointment of all. In the ravine garden, 

 with its rich "woods dirt," the accumula- 

 tion of decaying veg-etation of no one knows 

 how long-, I expected something wonderful 

 of the Craig, and, in fact, there was a great 

 show of tops. I could find hills where I 

 could raise up the vines and twine them 

 aoout my neck ; but after they were killed 

 by the fros , about Oct. 20, to myg-reat sur- 

 prise we had only a lot of rather small im- 

 mature potatoes. It was the same at friend 

 Hilbert's. He said he wanted no more of 

 the Craig. Now just contrast the above 

 with the following- letter I just received from 

 Medina: 



J)ea< Mr. Root:—\V(i got 200 bushels of Craigs in the 

 swamp, and they were fine I wish you could have 

 seen them roll oiit. They lay thick in the rows. We 

 got it.T bushels of Craigs by the windmill, and they 

 were nice ones too— very few scabby. U e got "0 bush- 

 els of Craigs across the creek, about 1.5t bushels of vSir 

 Walter by the windmill. They were of good .size but 

 not quite .so .smooth as the Craigs. Ue dug about 20 I 

 bushels of Ru.ssets. but they were not very nice in 

 .shape Mo.st of them were prongy, and not very big. 



We got about 20 bushels of V\'hitton's v\ hite Mam 

 moth They were all fair potatoes, and good yield. 



Medina, Oct. 21. Frank Ritter. 



The swamp mentioned in the fore part of 

 the letter is a little less than one acre; and 

 for this poor season, when almost all pota- 

 toes ai'e pretty nearly a failure, the Craig- 

 on our Medina clay soil has scored away 

 ahead. Another thing, they are clean, and 

 free from scab and blight, on upland, when 

 almost every other kind is more or less af- 

 fected. We always get a big yield of nice 

 clean Craigs on any of our Medina ground; 

 but up here in this great potato region they 



